


embers bright

by GentleTouchGinger



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dad Roy, Gen, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, Parental Roy Mustang, Parental Royed - Freeform, Post-Apocalypse, Survival, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 07:09:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14515101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GentleTouchGinger/pseuds/GentleTouchGinger
Summary: Roy and Ed at the end of our world. A story of dandelions and embers, of a man and a dying boy.





	embers bright

**Author's Note:**

> I’m currently working on a longer piece for FMA (despite having never written for it before? Fuck my life?), but this one sorta took over. If you like parental Roy and Ed I’m like...addicted to it now so there will be at least one more (longer) fanfic about them from me. If you want specific stuff go and bug me about it on my tumblr (gingerthesnap). 
> 
> I call this “gasp” format. Tiny splices of scenes. Just gonna explain it straight up, it’s alternating in between the present and scenes from the past, most of which deal with the fallout from a significant event. 
> 
> Thanks to Cass and Sammie for proofreading and tolerating all my questions!
> 
> EDIT 6/17/18 - thanks so much for all the support! Just to let you guys know, the song Broken Crown by Mumford and Sons really just...is this fic. It captures the emotion and the beats of the story and the desperation and I feel like the lyrics even fit pretty well? Figured someone besides me should know how intertwined the song and the fic actually are.

“Do it.” Grit teeth. The glint of his eyes. And then - 

Swinging blade and his screams drown out the rest of the memory. 

* * *

The night was cold like the ice that moves quick enough for the eye to see. Cold that stole your lungs with each breath. Cold beyond snow, beyond flesh, beyond reason.

But it was not a cold that could stop the dead. 

Roy held the boy to him (that’s what he was really, just a boy), their lone blanket wrapped around them both as Ed slept drowsily against him. The fire had burned low, but Roy couldn’t bring himself to rouse it. When would the frost break and give way to spring? He had no count of the months or weeks but it had to be soon, now. They couldn’t take many more nights like this.

There was a noise - separate from the constant drone of dead drawn to their flame, and instantly, Roy’s weary eyes snapped wide open. A banging. It could’ve been a thousand things. An animal, something falling, the building rotting, but dread curled in Roy’s stomach like ink spreading in water and just as he sat up to reach for his pistol, he heard the click of gun cocking. 

Ed started awake and Roy immediately pushed him down, pulling him to his chest as he tried to scramble away in blind panic. If there was one, there had to be others. If Ed ran now, he’d be shot before Roy could do a damn thing. Roy heard a low chuckle from behind him. 

“Good,” the voice said, and Roy turned to glare at the woman holding a gun to his head. “Get up.” Roy slowly pushed himself into a sitting position, shoving off the blanket and somehow not feeling the biting cold. He felt Ed do the same besides him, finally seeming to grasp the gravity of the situation. 

Two others stepped into the firelight. “Now. We’re going to take your packs.” There was a shuffle as the woman’s accomplices scooped the backpacks up. Food. Medicine. Ammunition. Gone. “And your weapon.” Roy hissed in anger as they picked up his gun. How the fuck would they survive a day without it? “And we’ll be on our merry way. Resist, and we’ll take the boy.” She smiled at Roy, and fuck, was it a wicked thing. “All we have nowadays is time. I can think of several entertaining uses for him.” 

Roy immediately hit Ed to stop him from shouting at the woman, trying to pretend his insides hadn’t turned to ice at the threat. He didn’t look at Ed’s pleading gaze (he didn’t need to, he could feel the fight itching in him now). He did not break eye contact with the woman, and slowly, methodically, nodded. 

She stepped forward as if she had all the time in the world, maintaining eye contact with Roy as she stamped out the last of their embers beneath her boot. Then, she turned on her heel, leaving as quickly as she’d come, and in less than a goddamn minute, they had nothing.

* * *

The bandages soak through almost instantly. Roy tightens the tourniquet (the limb’s gone, what good will another inch do him), wincing as the kid hisses in pain, because that’s the last thing he needs after Roy  _ cut off his leg. _

Roy manages to sew it up. Sloppily, yes, but the bleeding is nearly stopped, and he thinks he got all the veins, and he didn’t throw up. He is shaking but Ed is just lying there on the concrete, his face moon white and his breath thin like a calm sea and Roy can not let him die here. 

He bandages the stump and ignores his soft, miserable whines of agony. He picks Ed up in his arms, cradles him against his chest, and settles him down in the sleeping bag Roy found upstairs. Ed looks up at him blearily as Roy wipes blood off his face with a cloth. 

“Go to sleep,” Roy murmurs, because that is his only respite from the pain. They have nothing, no antibiotics, no morphine, no disinfectant, nothing, just some thread he unraveled from an old shirt and a needle he found in this old house by some grace of...luck. If he ever meets that woman again, he’ll kill her. Roy swears it, he’ll shoot her, stab her, starve her, burn her to death with the embers she stomped out. 

Ed nods, mumbling something Roy doesn’t hear as he rolls over to curl up into the blankets. Lying there, his still bloody hair splayed out across the nylon, eyes closed and shaking (why won’t he stop  _ shaking  _ like that), he had never looked smaller, and Roy had never felt more helpless. 

* * *

Ed’s footsteps were a steady (albeit slow) rhythm behind him as they travelled down the highway. It was a depressing march, a desperate search for  _ something _ in the wake of losing everything. He didn’t blame Ed for complaining and dragging his feet. It was hard, Roy knew it was hard, but they had to keep going.

And then, Ed’s footsteps stopped.

Roy let out a low sigh. He turned around to yell at the teen, only to see Ed kneeling on the asphalt, looking down at a clump of dandelions on the side of the road. 

“Come on, Ed. We’ve gotta move.” 

“They’re pretty,” Ed argued, looking up to glare at him. “C’mon, bastard. Look at ‘em. When was the last time you saw something pretty?” 

Ed wasn’t wrong. It had been a long, cold, bitter winter (cold that _ steals _ , cold beyond reason), and after the shit Ed had seen, he deserved a moment of peace. Hell, he deserved a lifetime of peace. But he wasn’t going to get it. 

Roy stepped up and looked down at the flowers. The dandelions were rugged things, with stems of reddish purple, and fuzzy, bright blooms. Bright like they hadn’t seen in a while. 

“They’re edible, too,” Roy huffed, pulling his knife out of his back pocket and flicking it open. Ed simply groaned. 

“Really?” Ed argued, but he didn’t move to stop Roy as he cut through the stems and passed the flowers to Ed. 

He pulled the roots up and shook off the dirt. The sight of the empty hole where the plant had once grown was (somehow) worse than the hunger. It was stupid, really stupid, to mourn a  _ flower, _ a  _ dandelion.  _ They were absolutely everywhere, why did he give a shit about this one fucking flower-

They kept walking.

* * *

Ed wakes once more, pain settled into his every feature but not so far gone that he’s unable to pretend he’s alright. He speaks, drinks water, eats, even moves from his spot to go to the bathroom, and hope blossoms in Roy’s chest like a forest swelling with new spring.

But the next morning, when Roy goes to rouse him, he finds the sleeping bag soaked with sweat. Ed is hot to the touch and he will not wake, only stir in his sleep and moan. When Roy pulls back the blanket to look at his leg, he sees the swelling. 

He holds the child. Tries to cool him, soothes him when he stirs, makes him drink water and sip broth, but nothing (nothing) will bring him back from this. 

And losing him is the one reality Roy refuses to face.

* * *

“Al died.”

“Ed-” 

“He got bit. We took him to the hospital, we were so  _ stupid, _ they took one look at the bite and they shot him dead in the parking lot.” 

“Ed-” 

“It was just his hand, we could’ve amputated, we could’ve saved him,  _ they  _ could’ve saved him, but they shot him in the street.

“You couldn’t have known, Ed.” 

“Doesn’t matter. He’s still dead. My little brother’s dead, and it’s my fault.”

* * *

He leaves him (you left him) sleeping there, covered in blankets and with water and food in arm’s reach, along with a hastily scratched note. Every step is like lead, like pulling a magnet from its twin, as he walks up the stairs and away from the cellar.

Medicine. He’ll come back, he just. He has to find medicine. 

* * *

“We could’ve fought, you know,” Ed grumbled as Roy folded up the blanket (one of their last possessions) and tucked it under his arm.

“They would’ve killed both of us,” he replied, because this wasn’t a conversation he was interested in having. They had threatened Ed. He would’ve done the same thing a thousand times over. Long ago, maybe not. Maybe _ he _ would have fought, the man he once was, but Roy has seen people turn to lions and he knew the woman’s threat was true. He couldn’t risk Ed. He was worth so much more than those packs and a gun, how could he not see that? 

“Yeah, or maybe they wouldn’t have. We’ll never know now, will we?” Ed snapped in reply, glaring at him and refusing to help as Roy broke down the campsite. “And now we have nothing. For what?” 

“For you,” Roy said, snapping his head around to look at him, and he regretted the words the second he said them because they are the sort of truth you don’t say aloud. He could feel the blood drain from his face, and Ed took a step back.

“I didn’t-”

“You did.” 

They stared at each other, and Roy could honestly say it was one of the most awkward silences of his life. And then-

Ed turned away, moving to scuff the ashes of their long dead fire, and Roy felt a hopelessness he never knew was possible.

* * *

He can see their eyes on him, wide and shocked, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t have time for this. They’re in his way, he  _ needs _ to loot the pharmacy. If they think he can’t gut them with a knife then they are dangerously mistaken. Two men and a woman. He doesn’t care. He’ll kill them if they don’t move. 

“Are you hurt?” one of them asks, and he looks down to see Ed’s blood still staining his clothes (it burbled from him, flowed past Roy’s fingers like dark water). He grits his teeth and  _ glares. _   


“It’s not mine,” he spits, furious at the vulnerability that leeches its way into his words. “Get out of the way.”    


One of them steps forward, a man with dark hair and taped glasses. He meets Roy’s gaze, countering the fury there with a patient sort of calm, and Roy looks away. The man doesn’t need to ask, the question is there, plain as day.  _ Whose? _ Roy doesn’t owe him anything, not his story or Ed’s, but if he tells the man why, then maybe they’ll just let him pass.    
  
“My…” What is Ed? A companion? A friend? After all this suffering and hope and time, he doesn’t know what to call him. “My...my son. It’s my son’s.” He’s surprised at how easily the word comes.    
  
He can see the shock flit across their faces like the snap of a flame. Whatever they were expecting, it wasn’t that. The man looks at him again, with that same, steady, condescending calm, and Roy hates him for it.    
  
“Can we help?” he asks, in a slow, practiced tone, as if he’s speaking to a toddler. “What does he need?” 

“Medicine,” Roy snaps, nodding towards the pharmacy.

The man frowns. “Empty. We just checked it.” 

Roy can feel the panic closing in, desperate, wild, and pounding. Where else can he go? He’s searched everywhere else, there’s nowhere-

“We have some. At our safehouse, there’s a doctor. We could take you,” the man says, ignoring the annoyed noises of his companions. “But we have to see your son.”    
  
_ No _ , Roy wants to scream,  _ no, no, get away, get away from us _ . He doesn’t know them, and that means danger, that means guns and threats and cold. But fuck...for some reason Roy can’t stop hearing Ed’s gasp of pain as Roy squeezed his hand to say goodbye. Yes, this is a risk, but Ed deserves more than a death like this.    
  
So, ignoring the voice in his head that screams at him to run, to attack, to do something, anything else, he nods.

* * *

The rain came in droves, wild, leaves curling up to reveal their undersides, water soaking the dirt into mud. He and Ed ran down a once dusty road, mud splashing their clothes and water soaking their shoes. Roy pointed towards a house ahead, but he didn’t need to, Ed was already bolting for it. They scrambled up the steps, and finally, gasping, stopped.

After they’d caught their breath, Roy banged on the door. They waited, and for several long, silent seconds, nothing happened. Ed stepped forward and turned the handle, Roy could see him shivering. He followed him into the house, knife in hand. He glanced around as Ed walked into the next room. It looked like no one had been in there since the world had ended, and that was promising. That meant food, if they were lucky.

And then, out of nowhere, Ed screamed. It was a horrible sound, born of terror and agony, and Roy nearly tripped over his own feet as he scrambled into the next room, reaching without thinking for his gun, knife low in his other hand. 

It was a walker, starved and rotting, and it had its hand wrapped firmly around Ed’s ankle. He was desperately trying to shake it off, scrambling for the knife at his belt, and as Roy’s fingers closed around air (the gun that wasn’t there, the gun they’d taken), he watched as the creature’s teeth bit through the fabric of Ed’s pant leg, and sunk deep into his flesh.    


* * *

He rushes down the staircase, for that moment, forgetting the strangers behind him. Steps do not come quickly enough as he races to Ed’s side. He pauses for a moment, staring frozen until he sees Ed’s chest rise, and then the relief hits him like thunder and he almost feels sick from the joy of it. Roy rests a hand on Ed’s forehead, runs his fingers through his tangled hair, cherishes his presence, because he’s alive and Roy isn’t too late.

And then he remembers the strangers. He turns to them, a dark look in his eyes. “Don’t touch him,” he snaps, fully aware there is little he can do if they decide they wish to do otherwise. 

“I won’t,” the man (Maes, he said his name is Maes) calls, but he steps closer, and Roy tenses. “What’s wrong with him?”    


“Lost his leg,” Roy says, not wanting to tell them the full story. If they knew why, would they revoke their offer of medicine and care? “Wound got infected.”

“Can you carry him?”

Roy nods. He shifts Ed, ignoring his groan of pain, and wraps him carefully in one of the blankets. He scoops him up and holds him tight against his chest. He can’t hold a weapon like this. He looks around at their belongings, scattered across the cellar. All they’ve managed to collect, after losing everything. They cannot afford to start anew for a second time. “I, I need to-” he stutters, suddenly overwhelmed by the situation. 

“We’ll get them,” Maes comforts, and the other two move to gather their things. “Our place isn’t far.” 

Roy hates this, hates the thought of strangers touching everything they have and he hates being helpless like this, out in the open with Ed in his arms, but he knows he doesn’t have a choice. 

“What’s his name?” the woman asks as she approaches. Unlike Maes, she’s smart enough to keep her distance.

Roy looks over at her, not wanting to answer, not wanting to tell them anything because it could all be fake, a trap, a trick. Even something as simple as a name could be used against them, but he owes them. Even if they walk away now, he still owes them. If they help Ed...what is the value of a life? 

“Ed,” he spits, glaring at her with a deep, cold hatred that he doesn’t quite feel. “I’m Roy.” 

She smiles thinly at him. “Riza,” she replies. “And Jean.” She nods towards the other man, who is currently carrying their backpack. “Let’s move.”

* * *

They met in what once was a city. Buildings like skeletons, asphalt cracking with new life, cars like shells. A gasp of what it once was, really.

Roy was trapped under a dumpster, dead hands clawing at air for him, weak but enduring. It had been  _ days,  _ no sleep, little food, water running low, and he didn’t know what he was going to do. What death was better? Shriveling up like this starved city? Or bleeding in their teeth? 

The gunshots broke the chorus of groans he’d accepted as his dirge. He pressed further back into the dark of the crack, watching as the corpses that had been tormenting him fell limp. 

“You can come out. They’re gone.”

And he crawled out onto the asphalt, blinking in the light as he pushed himself up. He turned to the intruder, knife out, but as he looked at him, the person who had saved him, his worry faded. 

It was...a kid? A kid with one arm? 

A kid with one arm who had just saved his life.

* * *

He settles Ed down on a mattress, and for several days (near sleepless, for Roy), he is only moved so Roy can carry him to the bathroom. Besides this, he rarely wakes. When he does, he mutters nonsense and stares unseeing. Only after the antibiotics have been in his system for a week does his fever show signs of stopping, and he finally looks at Roy with bright eyes and holds a conversation.

At this point, Roy would do anything these people asked, find anything they wanted. He would happily live the rest of his life in service to them, because they have saved the only thing he still lives for. 

But whenever he mentions this, they refuse to listen. He speaks of repayment and they dismiss him.  _ Who would we be if we didn’t help?  _ Maes says, Riza snorts at him and says  _ don’t worry about it _ , Jean tells him to  _ stick around for a bit, if you really think you owe us.  _

All this means is that they will ask him to pay the debt later, or worse, they expect Ed to. And that is something Roy won’t allow. 

Ed sips broth, leaning back against the pillows, and Roy watches him. He takes comfort in the boy’s every motion, because he is not still like death and his breath is strong and Roy needs the reassurance that he will not be alone again.

Ed does not seem to appreciate the staring, and after several minutes, he meets Roy’s gaze and glares. “I’m not going to poof into smoke if you leave me for one damn second, bastard,” he snaps. 

Roy sighs and looks down at the blanket. He doesn’t know how to respond, because honestly, there’s a part of Roy that thinks he  _ might.  _

Ed sighs. “You gotta stop looking at me like that.” 

Roy looks up at him. “Like what?” he asks, and Ed lets out an irritated hiss and stares down at the bowl. 

“Like  _ that. _ Like I’m some sort of useless kid.” 

Roy grits his teeth, upset because it’s untrue, but more so because he can’t deny he’s been staring at Ed with pity. 

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, and Ed finally looks up at him.

“Yeah, well you should be,” he snaps. “I’ve got one leg now, but...that’s not gonna stop me. I didn’t let losing my arm stop me, either. So you need to stop staring at me like I’m some sort of sick little baby or sad animal video and start figuring out how we’re going to get back on the road, because I don’t want to stay here forever.”

Roy sighs in response, because that’s the question, isn’t it? How they’re going to get back on the road. It’s a question that means too many things, realities Roy doesn’t want to face, and he’s been avoiding it. The aftermath of this, life for Ed in the apocalypse with only two limbs. Can Roy protect him out there? (And more importantly, does Ed want him to?) How can they leave here, without making enemies of their saviors? 

“I’m trying to get you mobile,” Roy replies after a long silence. “But you’re still healing, even if we found a prosthetic that somehow fit perfectly, you couldn’t wear it yet. I don’t know, Ed. I’m trying, but…” How does he admit to Ed that he’s failed him? “It’ll be a while. I think.” He hates the words as he says them. “I think we’re stuck here, for now.” 

Ed huffs in irritation, and Roy can’t blame him for being annoyed. They don’t know these people, and he’s just told him he’ll have to be off his feet for an indeterminate amount of time. 

“I’ll figure it out, alright?” Roy says, pushing to his feet not because he wants to leave him, but because he understands Ed needs space. “Yell if you need anything.” 

What kind of choice is this? 

* * *

“You were right, you know.” 

“About what?” Roy said, looking up at Ed with a teasing smile. He’d been tearing bark into strips for several minutes now, and he had a nice sized pile. “Everything? You finally admit it?”

“You absolute moron,” Ed replied, snapping a twig in half. “In the city. That night, with the robbers. You were right.” 

Roy paused in his task, regretting that he jumped at the opportunity to tease him. “About not risking your life for some supplies? Yeah, I was right about that. Glad to know you agree.” 

He picked up Ed’s now short sticks and began to stack them in a pyramid shape around his bark. Ed lay back against the grass. 

“I don’t get it. Why do people suck now?” Ed said, staring up at the twilight sky as bats flew overhead. 

“People get scared, and they do crazy things,” Roy replied, pulling a lighter out of his pocket. “People weren’t scared like this before.” 

“We won’t do that, right?” Ed asked. “Hurt people?” He looked over at Roy as he began to flick the lighter, holding it close to the strips of bark so the flame would catch.

“No, we won’t, Ed,” Roy replied, watching as the wood catches aflame, burning bright. He fed it leaves so it would grow tall and wide enough to ignite the twigs. “We’re not alone. There are others who aren’t scared, Ed, and one day we’ll find them.” 

* * *

He’s sitting with Ed on the porch, and it’s summer, but the kind that shines warm and yields to breeze. Riza found a prosthetic, and they’ve been altering it to fit Ed as best as they can. It’s nowhere near perfect, it’s not comfortable, but the kid hasn’t complained yet.

There’s a fence here. Garden beds with fruits and vegetables. A room they share, a single mattress that Ed somehow manages to push Roy off every single night. Riza’s teaching Ed archery (he pulls the bowstring back with his teeth), and they’ve given Roy a new gun.

Wildflowers grow behind the cabin. There’s a dog here, Black Hayate (he’s Riza’s, but he’s everyone’s) and Ed plays fetch with him for  _ hours _ . 

They speak of leaving. But that’s the thing. They really only  _ speak _ of it.

And finally, one day, in the dull heat of summer’s end, they yield and confess they have no plans to go. And their friends, their team, their family, simply laughs, because really, they knew it all along.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are so appreciated you guys! Even little comments, don’t feel like you have to write a dissertation because the textbox is giant. Or, like. Just a kudos. Or a bookmark. One way street. That’s fine, I like talking to myself anyways.


End file.
